Revision as of 14:11, 21 April 2012

Contents

2 Highlights

The scope of NA-MIC activities includes both highly speculative explorations of new
mathematical formulations of core image analysis techniques and the ongoing effort of
delivering and supporting binary distributions of software applications across a range of
computing platforms. To address this continuum, NA-MIC Computer Science Core efforts are
organized around two teams: Algorithms and Engineering. Their joint output is the NA-MIC Kit
which embodies a comprehensive set of analysis techniques in a well architected, documented,
and widely used platform as described in the following paragraphs.

Algorithms. The NA-MIC Computer Science Algorithm effort is responsible for pushing the
boundaries of applied mathematical techniques in the context of the challenges of the DBPs. As
such, the Algorithm activities are typically highly experimental, with a wide range of approaches
that are rapidly prototyped, tested, and improved. These efforts, often undertaken by graduate
students under the direction of more senior academics, generate novel approaches that can
have wide applicability beyond the original motivating problems.

Engineering. The NA-MIC Computer Science Engineering effort is responsible for providing an
integrated platform that supports the research requirements of the NA-MIC community.
Consisting of both academic and commercial software developers, the Engineering team aims
for a stable and reliable software platform with a sufficiently high level set of support to enable
leading-edge clinical applications.

NA-MIC Kit. The NA-MIC Kit consists of a modular set of interoperable free open source
software (FOSS) packages, managed under a collaborative, high quality software engineering
methodology. These packages have been carefully architected to accommodate technology
contributions from the NA-MIC Investigators, and to rapidly deploy these technologies to NAMIC and the broader biomedical imaging community. A primary motivation for the creation and
use of this common infrastructure is that new concepts, emerging perhaps after a productive
discussion at a computer science seminar, can be directly and efficiently deployed into the
hands of a clinical researcher seeking better insight on a difficult patient case. Thus, the
process of closing the gap between idea and implementation, and supporting rapid iteration as
new ideas are tested and improved, lies at the core of the NA-MIC software approach.

In the following subsections we highlight the accomplishments from this reporting period for
algorithms, engineering, and NA-MIC kit.